For The Sake of Arguments

The other day my friend told me something I’ve heard from many Christians over the years. He said, “As a Christian I think it is the church’s job to help the poor, not the government’s.”​While this sentence has a nice, reassuring neatness, it is actually a pretty problematic way to talk about politics “as a Christian.”​To see why this is the case, consider first the “as a Christian, I think” part of his statement. Now, obviously, we can think a lot of things "as Christians." To name three, we could think that Christians should love their neighbors, that the death penalty is wrong, or that pizza is delicious. It is clear that thinking of them “as a Christian” means something different in each case.

Christians generally agree that loving one's neighbor is a core teaching of Christianity, but saying pizza is delicious “as a Christian” does not seem to be the same sort of claim. In fact, it probably just seems silly. It is clear that being a Christian doesn’t have anything to do with thinking that pizza is delicious. I may think pizza is delicious while being a Christian, but not because I am one.

The middle example (“as a Christian, I think the death penalty is wrong”) is trickier. It is not the case that "the death penalty is wrong" is an explicit teaching of the Bible, but certainly many Christians conclude that it is implied by what the Bible says. Someone who says she thinks the death penalty is wrong “as a Christian” probably means to say something like “reflection on my Christian beliefs has led me to conclude that the death penalty is wrong.” This assertion might also convey that she thinks that all Christians should oppose the death penalty. This is common; if we see a conviction as a clear implication of Christianity, we usually think other Christians should agree with us, even if they can still be Christian without doing so. When she says she thinks this “as a Christian,” the person she's talking to might justly conclude that she is making a claim about what a Christian should think about the death penalty.

The second half of my friend’s sentence is also ambiguous. He could mean, on the one hand, that he happens to believe two separate things: that it is the church’s job to help the poor AND that it is not the government’s job to help the poor. On the other hand, he could mean to say that because it is the church’s job to help the poor, it is therefore not the government’s job.

The problem, from my perspective, is that he mixes together what should be two different kinds of statements. He presents his belief about government (about which Christians can disagree) as if it is is entailed in a core Christian belief: helping the poor (about which Christians should all agree). However, there is no logical reason why the church’s mandate to help the poor would mean it is not also the government’s responsibility, unless one subscribes to the premise that only one institution can be responsible for the poor. But what's the basis of that premise? A Christian might be a member of a church, family, charitable organization, business, neighborhood association, city, state, country, or international body at the same time. The conviction that the church should help the poor does not automatically imply that all those other institutions should ignore them. Figuring out the commitments and priorities appropriate to each of them is a difficult problem for human reflection and does not follow automatically from the Bible.

Now, it is certainly possible that my friend thinks the government is bad at helping the poor or that reliance on the government leads the church to neglect its duties or that the government should not be in the poverty amelioration business for some other reason. There is nothing clearly wrong with those convictions. He can think them while Christian. My concern here is the need to be careful about language if we want to avoid presenting our political conclusions as direct implications of Christian belief. We must be clear about which of our convictions are actually from the Bible, which are the result of our thinking about the implications of those teachings, and which we merely happen to hold while being Christians.

Great words, David. It strikes me that the "it's the church's job to help the poor and not the government's" line is usually meant as a dichotomy. It's assumed that people have to take a side. You make a good point by saying that there's no clear reason why a person can't think that individuals, church communities, and the government should all help the poor. I'd go a step further and say it's a false dichotomy. You can see it's a false one by forcing the question: "is it possible for the church and the government to each help the poor?" If that's possible, then there's no logical reason that we must choose one and cannot choose the other.
Also, I'm noting the hypocrisy, because most conservative evangelicals ardently try to have their "Christian" ideals enshrined in law, except for the welfare issue. You seldom hear them saying they don't think it's the governments job to protect the unborn, define marriage, or defend racial minorities because it is the church's job. They realize that on many issues, we expect the government to use its power to bring about the changes we are working privately to bring about. For those who think the church rather than the government should help the poor, I wonder how much of their conclusion is based on the knowledge that they will be taxed for it. Or fear of creeping government power. Or fear that the church will just stop helping if they know the government will step in. These are all understandable reasons for wanting the government's hands off, but they're all arguments from outcome rather than arguments from principle. And once we admit that arguments from outcome have a place in the Christian's political reasoning, then we legitimize arguments about the massive good that social justice and welfare programs can do. We even legitimize the choice to vote for a liberal candidate. And once we admit that one political party or ideology does not have a monopoly on the Christian vote, then we lose a lot of power and influence. We may even lose cultural relevance, and those are scary things to face.

Reply

Daniel Smith

8/1/2016 10:42:04 pm

Great words, David. It strikes me that the "it's the church's job to help the poor and not the government's" line is usually meant as a dichotomy. It's assumed that people have to take a side. You make a good point by saying that there's no clear reason why a person can't think that individuals, church communities, and the government should all help the poor. I'd go a step further and say it's a false dichotomy. You can see it's a false one by forcing the question: "is it possible for the church and the government to each help the poor?" If that's possible, then there's no logical reason that we must choose one and cannot choose the other.
Also, I'm noting the hypocrisy, because most conservative evangelicals ardently try to have their "Christian" ideals enshrined in law, except for the welfare issue. You seldom hear them saying they don't think it's the governments job to protect the unborn, define marriage, or defend racial minorities because it is the church's job. They realize that on many issues, we expect the government to use its power to bring about the changes we are working privately to bring about. For those who think the church rather than the government should help the poor, I wonder how much of their conclusion is based on the knowledge that they will be taxed for it. Or fear of creeping government power. Or fear that the church will just stop helping if they know the government will step in. These are all understandable reasons for wanting the government's hands off, but they're all arguments from outcome rather than arguments from principle. And once we admit that arguments from outcome have a place in the Christian's political reasoning, then we legitimize arguments about the massive good that social justice and welfare programs can do. We even legitimize the choice to vote for a liberal candidate. And once we admit that one political party or ideology does not have a monopoly on the Christian vote, then we lose a lot of power and influence. We may even lose cultural relevance, and those are scary things to face.